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Big media is scared sh*tless that millions of households won't have converter boxes installed by the Feb. 17th date, which, coincidentally, is during one of the "sweeps weeks" for broadcasters. Millions of eyeballs not able to watch TV will mean millions in lost advertising revenue in a time when TV is already showing declining viewership among the more coveted demographics. Broadcasters prefer putting off the deadline till the beginning of summer when most everything on TV are reruns and viewership is at its lowest.

I'm no attorney but it seems to me if you were planning to shut down on 2/17 and you still want to plan to do that, you can. If you want to read the text of Senate 328, as passed yesterday: http://thomas.loc.go...z?d111:s.00328:

Opinions expressed by me are my own and do not necessarily reflect
those of DBSTalk.com, DIRECTV, DISH, The Signal Group, or any other company.

I think there is a bigger issue that is being ignored. I live outside of Nashville. Over a year ago, I installed an antenna to get the digital stations. I live far enough out that analog was never an option. The antenna I installed was of the "UHF only" variety as the stations moved from VHF to UHF.

I get all of the channels fine with the antenna I have. However, if you look at antenna web, 5 is moving back to 5 and 8 is moving back to 8 "post transition". These are VHF. My antenna might not pick them up. This makes sense for current analog users. The antenna they currently have will work with the new stations and a converter box or capable TV. But, using this same reasoning, a person with VHF rabbit ears might lose channel 2 not because of digital capability, but because they don't have a UHF antenna to pull in the new signal.

I do have DirecTv with the local channels. I put up the antenna to pull in "Tornado Warnings" during severe weather when the satellite likes to fade. It also allows me to watch the two NFL games on separate TVs in my bonus room while having a ST game or the Red Zone channel up on the main screen.

I think there is a lot more confusion than most people realize. I get these transition questions all the time. I'm not sure I have good answers. I think the best course of action is to turn them off and let everyone deal with the fallout.

relax!! why is everyone so angry about this? really? how does this effect any of you?

How does this AFFECT ME? I'll tell you....WAFF was supposed to boost power at the same time as the transition....I'm assuming they won't be able to since the new channel allocations won't go into affect. As a result...I still drop out on NBC HD due to low power strength. 48KW to 384KW is a substantial boost....now I have to wait until June. Or I have to go buy a amp....instead of folks taking the initiative and buying their own converters....

If you are upset as I am about the senate passing S.328, just remember... ONLY the Senate passed the bill. It has yet to come up for a vote in the House. If you are screaming mad about this, go to www.congress.org, find your reps, and fire off a nice yet polite letter referencing S.328. (Because of the amount of mail received, it is important to reference the bill number.)

The vote in the House is tentatively scheduled for today. Better move fast.

I always wondered why the couplon expiration dates weren't all set to 2/17/2009. Anyone know?

Theoretically, it's 90 days from when they're mailed and it took mines over a week in the snail mail system to arrive. Mines arrived on Saturday and they expire on 4/10. My mailing date was 1/12 according to the website when I signed up which would have given me a little more than 30 days to redeem my coupon rather than the full 90 days had the 2/17 date held up.

My guess the big cities will hold off, since they likely have the most people who "aren't ready".

I think it will be exactly opposite. IMO, big cities, with smaller lots, apartment buildings, etc. are more likely to have much higher cable penetration, and also have a higher income level more able to afford cable and satellite. In rural areas where it was never economical to run cable between houses that are miles apart, and incomes are low, more people rely on OTA.

The number of people who "aren't ready" in big cities might be higher, but the percentage of a station's audience is probably much lower. That is what they are going to look at.

"If we cut off now, we lose a few percent of our audience, but we save $xxx thousands by not having to transmit two signals. Overall, bottom line increases. Flip the switch."

The NAB is a strong lobby group. I'm surprised they aren't fighting tooth and nail against this since most stations are against it. The Senate pulled a real stupid move especially with all the ads running. Will they dub over the dates in the commercials? Also June 12th is a Friday, way to go idiot Senators!

You know. I'm old enough to remember the days when not every household even HAD a TV!! Technology moves along and as a consumer you have to move along with it or be left out of the loop. Its just the way it has always been. When color TV first started, it was years before all households had one. For a few dollars ($40) those supposed homes who do not have a converter can get one. I'll bet that come June there will still be cries from people about not being ready for the switch. Lost in all of this are the millions of dollars spent by local Fire and Police depts. on new equipment to take advantage of the new radio spectrums they will have to better communicate with each other. Now everthing goes on hold till June and we have to keep watching those damn commercials about the converter boxes!! Just my 2 cents

The NAB is a strong lobby group. I'm surprised they aren't fighting tooth and nail against this since most stations are against it. The Senate pulled a real stupid move especially with all the ads running. Will they dub over the dates in the commercials? Also June 12th is a Friday, way to go idiot Senators!

I don't know what they'll do with the commercials... this has been a real drain on broadcasters because all that commercial time could have been sold.

Opinions expressed by me are my own and do not necessarily reflect
those of DBSTalk.com, DIRECTV, DISH, The Signal Group, or any other company.

Yes, it was actually passed as a "guidance" all the way back in the late 19th century and several other times since then (most recently the 70s). Because no hard date was ever set it's never happened and in fact we've lost just about all momentum it ever had. It hurts American businesses every day and drives up costs of products from all countries that are sold here. That's my complaint with this delay, a hard date was set, then it was moved and now it's moving again, only this time less than one month before said deadline.

As for the arguments that stations have the option of shutting off their Analog broadcast on the 17th, there are still many that can't transition to their new digital spectrum until others in their area shut their analog off. If I'm running a station I don't see a compelling argument for making the switch a two part effort.

To go very quickly off topic, the fact is that we are metric all the way to the end user. Science, technology, manufacturing, is all done to metric standards and the final product is sold in the English system.

To get back on topic, I await a statement from any broadcaster who says he will continue spending money to reach the approximately 1% of his market who probably does not watch television habitually anyway.

Opinions expressed by me are my own and do not necessarily reflect
those of DBSTalk.com, DIRECTV, DISH, The Signal Group, or any other company.

First I'll say, planners at the TV stations would have to plan for a February 17 hard date, but if any of them didn't also consider what they would do in the event of a delay, that would seem to me to be VERY short-sighted planning on their part. I'm sure the majority of them have already had contingency plans ready whether that meant switching on 2/17 anyway or working with/around the delay.

Secondly, I agree with the poster who already worked with those in his family to make sure they were ready. I, too, made sure the couple of people in my family who would need to requested coupons, then bought them boxes when they got them. However, there are a lot of people who do not have someone looking out for them like that and may be, in fact, rather clueless.

I work at a non-profit service organization, and they have been asking employees if we come across anyone who has a coupon they will not be using and would like to donate it (not a tax deduction, by the way ), they are trying to help people make the transition and could use the help. I would imagine that there are similar things going on with other service/community organizations as well. And it isn't just the elderly, it could be low income families with children, etc. (sorry, compassion on my sleeve somethimes).

Yes, there are some who won't even make an attempt to be ready by June. There are others (as so eloquently laid out by someone in an earlier post ) who may have trouble even affording their utilities, etc., but these are people that could be helped by the delay.

That being said, come on, people, get off your butts!!!

It's like suffering through MONTHS of campaign ads, finally seeing the light at the end of the tunnel with Nov 2 on the horizon, and still almost THREE MONTHS later hearing about the senate race every day! ENOUGH!!!!

2/17/2009 -- make all analog broadcast B&W -- that should get their attention.

While I like this idea, I was thinking more in the way of every 5 minutes, they show a screen for 30 seconds with the message:

YOUR TV is not ready for the Digital Transition!

If you would like to see this show in it's entirety & without these messages, you need to act NOW!

It might also help if one of the networks (let us say NBC) request their affiliates to start early. February 1, 2009 sounds like a good date. My guess is if this happens a couple of times during the Super Bowl Pre-game show, the number of households not ready for the transition will be down by over 50% by kick-off